The talk was basic. If anyone dared to call them Fool! they could just point at their bank accounts and let the numbers refute the accusation.
Biju thought of Saeed Saeed who still refused to eat a pig, "They dirty, man, they messy. First I am Muslim, then I am Zanzibari, then I will BE American." Once he’d shown Biju his new purchase of a model of a mosque with a quartz clock set into the bottom that was programmed, at the five correct hours, to start agitating: "Allah hu Akbar, la ilhaha illullah, wal lah hu akbar. …" Through the crackle of the tape from the top of the minaret came ancient sand-weathered words, that keening cry from the desert offering sustenance to create a man’s strength, his faith in an empty-bellied morning and all through the day, that he might not fall through the filthy differences between nations. The lights came on encouragingly, flashing in the mosque in disco green and white.
"Why do you want to leave?" Odessa was shocked. A chance like they had given him! He surely didn’t know how lucky he was.
"He’ll never make it in America with that kind of attitude," said Baz hopefully.
Biju left as a new person, a man full to the brim with a wish to live within a narrow purity.
"Do you cook with beef?" he asked a prospective employer.
"We have a Philly steak sandwich."
"Sorry. I can’t work here."
"They worship the cow," he heard the owner of the establishment tell someone in the kitchen, and he felt tribal and astonishing.
Smoky Joe’s.
"Beef?"
"Honey," said the lady, "Ah don’t mean to ahffend you, but Ah’m a steak eater and Ah AAHM beef."
Marilyn. Blown-up photographs of Marilyn Monroe on the wall, Indian owner at the desk!
The owner was on the speakerphone.
"Rajnibhai, Kem chho?"
"What?"
"Rajnibhai?"
"Who aez thees?" Very Indian-trying-to-be-American accent.
"Kem chho? Saaru chho? Teme samjo chho?"
"WHAAT?"
"Don’t speak Gujerati, sir?"
"No."
"You are Gujerati, no?"
"No."
"But your name is Gujerati??"
"Who are you??!!"
"You are not Gujerati?"
"Who are you??!!"
"AT amp;T, sir, offering special rates to India."
"Don’t know anyone in India."
"Don’t know anyone???? You must have some relative?"
"Yeah," American accent growing more pronounced, "but I don’ taaalk to my relateev…"
Shocked silence.
"Don’t talk to your relative?"
Then, "We are offering forty-seven cents per minute."
"Vhaat deeference does that make? I haeve aalready taaald you," he spoke s 1 o w as if to an idiot, "no taleephone caalls to Eeendya."
"But you are from Gujerat?" Anxious voice.
"Veea Kampala, Uganda, Teepton, England, and Roanoke state of Vaergeenia! One time I went to Eeendya and, laet me tell you, you canaat pay me to go to that caantreey agaen!"
Slipping out and back on the street. It was horrible what happened to Indians abroad and nobody knew but other Indians abroad. It was a dirty little rodent secret. But, no, Biju wasn’t done. His country called him again. He smelled his fate. Drawn, despite himself, by his nose, around a corner, he saw the first letter of the sign, G, then an AN. His soul anticipated the rest: DHI. As he approached the Gandhi Café, the air gradually grew solid. It was always unbudgeable here, with the smell of a thousand and one meals accumulated, no matter the winter storms that howled around the corner, the rain, the melting heat. Though the restaurant was dark, when Biju tested the door, it swung open.
There in the dim space, at the back, amid lentils splattered about and spreading grease transparencies on the cloths of abandoned tables yet uncleared, sat Harish-Harry, who, with his brothers Gaurish-Gary and Dhansukh-Danny, ran a triplet of Gandhi Cafés in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. He didn’t look up as Biju entered. He had his pen hovering over a request for a donation sent by a cow shelter outside Edison, New Jersey.
If you gave a hundred dollars, in addition to such bonus miles as would be totted up to your balance sheet for lives to come, "We will send you a free gift; please check the box to indicate your preference":
1. A preframed decorative painting of Krishna-Lila: "She longs for her lord and laments."
2. A copy of the Bhagavad Gita accompanied by commentary by Pandit so-and-so (B.A., MPhil., Ph.D., President of the Hindu Heritage Center), who has just completed a lecture tour in sixty-six countries.
3. A CD of devotional music beloved by Mahatma Gandhi.
4. A gift-coupon to the Indiagiftmart: "Surprise the special lady in your life with our special choli in the colors of onion and tender pink, coupled with a butter lehnga. For the woman who makes your house a home, a set of twenty-five spice jars with vacuum lids. Stock up on Haldiram’s Premium Nagpur Chana Nuts that you must have been missing…"
His pen hovered. Pounced.
To Biju he said: "Beef? Are you crazy? We are an all-Hindu establishment. No Pakistanis, no Bangladeshis, those people don’t know how to cook, have you been to those restaurants on Sixth Street? Bilkul bekaar. …"
One week later, Biju was in the kitchen and Gandhi’s favorite tunes were being sung over the sound system.
Twenty-three
Gyan and Sai’s romance was flourishing and the political trouble continued to remain in the background for them.
Eating momos dipped in chutney, Gyan said: "You’re my momo."
Sai said: "No you’re mine."
Ah, dumpling stage of love – it had set them off on a tumble of endearments and nicknames. They thought of them in quiet moments and placed them before each other like gifts. The momo, mutton in dough, one thing plump and cozy within the other – it connoted protection, affection.
But during the time they ate together at Gompu’s, Gyan had used his hands without a thought and Sai ate with the only implement on the table – a tablespoon, rolling up her roti on the side and nudging the food onto the spoon with it. Noticing this difference, they had become embarrassed and put the observation aside.
"Kishmish," he called her to cover it up, and "Kaju" she called him, raisin and cashew, sweet, nutty, and expensive. Because new love makes sightseers out of couples even in their own town, they went on excursions to the Mong Pong Nature Reserve, to Delo Lake; they picnicked by the Teesta and the Relli. They went to the sericulture institute from which came a smell of boiling worms. The manager gave them a tour of the piles of yellowy cocoons moving subtly in a corner, machines that tested waterproofing, flexibility; and he shared his dream of the future, of the waterproof and drip-dry sari, stain-proof, prepleated, zippable, reversible, super duper new millennium sari, named for timeless Bollywood hits like Disco Dancer. They took the toy train and went to the Darjeeling zoo and viewed in their free, self-righteous, modern love, the unfree and ancient bars, behind which lived a red panda, ridiculously solemn for being such a madly beautiful thing, chewing his bamboo leaves as carefully as a bank clerk doing numbers. They visited the Zang Dog Palri Fo Brang Monastery on Durpin Dara, where little monks were being entertained by the gray-haired ones, running up and down pulling the children on rice sacks, sailing them over the polished monastery floor, before the murals of demons and Guru Padmasambhava with his wrathful smile ensconced in a curly mustache, his carmine cloak, diamond scepter, lotus hat with a vulture feather; before a ghost riding a snow lion and a green Tara on a yak; sailing the children before the doors that opened like bird wings onto the scene of mountains all around.